Like all of the other players, this morning Luc looked more like a businessman or an investment banker than a hockey player. Earlier at the airport, Jane had been surprised to see the whole team show up in suits and ties as if they were on their way to the office.
Her view suddenly blocked, Jane glanced up into the battered face of enforcer Rob “the Hammer” Sutter. Bent over to accommodate the low ceiling, he appeared scarier than usual. She didn’t have the faces of all the Chinooks memorized yet, but Rob was one of those guys who was easy to remember. He was six-foot-three, two hundred and fifty pounds of intimidating muscle. At the moment, he sported a fuzzy goatee on his chin and a brilliant shiner beneath one of his green eyes. He’d taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and loosened his tie. His brown hair needed cutting and he had a piece of white tape across the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the briefcase on the seat next to her.
“Do you mind if I sit down for a few?”
Jane hated to admit it, but she’d always been a bit unnerved by big guys. They took up so much space and made her feel small and a little vulnerable. “Ahh, no.” She grabbed the leather handles and shoved the briefcase on the floor by her feet.
Rob crammed his big body in the seat next to her and pointed to the newspaper in her hands. “Did you read the article I wrote? It’s on page six.”
“Not yet.” Feeling a bit boxed in, Jane thumbed to page six and looked at a game photo of Rob Sutter. He had some guy in a headlock and was punching his face.
“That’s me feeding Rasmussen his lunch in his rookie season.”
She glanced sideways at Rob, taking in his black eye and broken nose. “Why?”
“Scored a hat trick.”
“Isn’t that his job?”
“Sure, but it’s my job to make things rough for him.” Rob shrugged. “Make him a little nervous when he sees me coming.”
Jane thought it prudent to keep her opinion of his job to herself. “What happened to your nose?”
“Got too close to a stick.” He pointed to the paper. “What do you think?”
She skimmed the article, which seemed to be well enough written.
“Do you think I hooked the reader in the first graph?”
“Graph?”
“That’s journalist talk for paragraph.”
She knew what graph meant. “I am more than a punching bag,‘” she read out loud. “That got my attention.”
Rob smiled, showing a row of beautiful white teeth. Jane wondered how many times they’d been knocked out and replaced. “I had a lot of fun writing that,” he said. “When I retire, I’m thinking maybe I’ll write articles full-time. Maybe you could give me some pointers.”
Getting a foot in the door was a lot easier said than done. Her own resume was less than stellar, but she didn’t want to rain on Rob’s parade by telling him the truth. “I’ll help you, if I can.”
“Thanks.” He half rose and pulled a wallet from his back pocket. When he sat down again, he flipped it open and pulled out a photograph. “This is Amelia,” he said as he handed her a picture of a baby girl resting on his chest.
“She’s so tiny. How old is she?”
“One month. Isn’t she the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen?”
Jane wasn’t about to argue with the Hammer. “She’s gorgeous.”
“Are we showing baby pictures again?”
Jane looked up and into a pair of brown eyes watching her over the seat in front of them. The man handed back a photo. “That’s Taylor Lee,” he said. “She’s two.”
Jane looked at the photo of a toddler as bald as the guy who’d handed it over, and she wondered what it was about people assuming everyone wanted to see their baby’s pictures. She didn’t recognize the eyes staring at her over the seat until Rob gave her a clue.
“She’s awfully bald, Fishy. When she gonna get some hair?”
Bruce Fish, second-string winger, half rose and took back his photograph. The light shone on his bald scalp while a scruffy beard covered the lower half of his face. “I was bald until I was five, and I turned out cute.”
Jane managed to keep a straight face. Bruce Fish might be a skilled puck handler, but he was not an attractive man.